Mercury in your molars? Medical message murky.

The debate over mercury-containing amalgam fillings is raging like a rotten tooth. The latest chapter pits an expert panel of FDA advisers against a government report that reviewed 34 recent studies in the effort to determine if the fillings are safe.

A joint panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers did not declare the so-called “silver fillings” unsafe. But in a 13-7 vote Thursday, the advisers said the federal report didn’t objectively and clearly present the current state of knowledge about the fillings.

In a second 13-7 vote, the panelists said the report’s conclusions about safety weren’t reasonable, given the quantity and quality of information available.

“For the general population, amalgams are safe. There is evidence of that,” said Dr. Karl Kieburtz, a University of Rochester professor and chairman of one of the two panels.

But Kieburtz went on to say that more research is needed, that it’s not clear that the fillings are safe for everyone, particularly kids and pregnant women.

Back in April the P-I ran this story that included research from the University of Washington that found no neurological or kidney problems in kids with the fillings. The UW study tracked the health of hundreds of orphans in Portugal. While no ill effects were detected, the kids with amalgam fillings did have higher levels of mercury in their urine.